Louise Paullin, sometimes seen as Louisa Paullin, was an American stage actress.
Early life
Louisa Paullin was born in 1848, and raised into a theatre family in California. She began performing on stage from childhood. Her parents were actors, Susan F. Paullin and James R. Paullin. She made national headlines in 1859, at age 11, when she ran away with, or was abducted by, a man in his twenties named Servey.
Career
By 1862, at age 14, Paullin was a member of the Bray and Carl's Variety Troupe, based in California. Paullin was in the cast of The Royal Middy in San Francisco in 1880. She appeared on Broadway in The Queen's Lace Handkerchief. She was also seen in Gilbert and Sullivan'sThe Sorcerer in 1883, and in Fantine and Zanita in Boston in 1884. She toured as "Yum-Yum" in The Mikado in 1885. In 1889 she starred in Ardriell, a comic operastaged at the off-Broadway Union Square Theatre. Critic Alan Dale commented that "Miss Paullin can certainly make herself heard, and that is about all that can be favorably said about her performance, which was characterized by an intense lack of refinement, and a pretty well defined mispronunciation of the English language." In 1897 she appeared in Geisha in Chicago. Paullin tried her hand at adapting a musical comedy from the German in 1888, when she wrote Our Baby's Nurse, which was produced that year in Philadelphia. She was a popular face on cigarette cards in the 1880s. She also lent her image to endorse "Burdock Blood Bitters", a digestive aid, Lion Coffee, skin care products, and Vin Mariani.
Lawsuit
In 1886, Paullin lost a purse containing over $1500 at a Philadelphia theatre, after she fainted on stage during The Bohemian Girl. She sued the stage manager of the Carleton Opera Company, Charles Caspar Fais, saying that he stole the money from her. The case was tried in Philadelphia in 1888, and was in the New York headlines for a week, until "the real thief", the prop man at the theatre, confessed that he found the money, and spent most of it.
Personal life
Louise Paullin married twice. She died in New York on April 18, 1910, survived by her second husband, theatrical agent H. B. Warner.
